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[aprilfestseattle]

November Book Club: Souvenir by Aimee Suzara

from Wordtech

APRIL Book Club features are selected by Seattle authors and community members. This month’s pick comes from Michelle Peñaloza. MIchelle grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She is the author of two chapbooks: landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias Press) and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts).  Michelle is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Kundiman,  4Culture, and Hugo House as well as scholarships from VONA/Voices and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among many others. 

Aimee Suzara's mind excites me. I'm in admiration of the ambition of her focus and of the breadth of her ability to create connections across time and space. Her book of poems, Souvenir, is an intertextual collection that investigates the complex history between the US and the Philippines and the complex history of what it means to be a citizen of diaspora. Through the lens of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and the history of the US-curated "Philippine Reservation" that was an integral and large (47 acre site) part of the fair, Suzara brings together museum exhibits, artifact objects, pseudo-science, propaganda, multiple voices, and pop culture (hell yeah, Grey's Anatomy references!) to interrogate the legacy of imperialism and the ways in which we behold and are beholden. I'm excited to talk about this book with folks and excited that Aimee will be able to join us for our discussion! She will be in town teaching a class at Hugo House, and will be stopping by beforehand to join APRIL Book Club time and our discussion of Souvenir.

To learn more about Souvenir, read Carribean Fragoza's review on Souvenir from the LA Review of Books and Kenji Liu's review from The Rumpus.

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In November, the APRIL Book Club will meet Sunday, 11/8 at 11am at Little Oddfellows, the cafe in Elliott Bay Book Company. Order the book from EBBC now.

[bookculturebookstore]

Q&A and Reading with James B. Nicola

As part of our ongoing celebration of National Poetry Month, we host theed Poets of Other Persuasions poetry reading last Friday, April 17th. The event featured readings by James B. Nicola, Alfred Encarnacion, Rachel Hadas, and Jennifer Michael Hecht. 

Before the event, we interviewed James B. Nicola, author of Manhattan Plaza and Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater, which is scheduled for publication in 2016. A Yale grad and stage director by profession, Nicola's non-fiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. Also a composer, lyricist, and playwright, James’s children’s musical, Chimes: A Christ­mas Vaude­ville, premiered in Fairbanks, Alaska, where Santa Claus was rumored to be in attendance on opening night.

How did you come to be a poet?

I went back to my alma mater to direct a musical. As an undergraduate, I'd written music and lyrics every day, having a key that provided access to gated buildings with pianos. As an alum, decades later, I was staying off-campus and couldn't get to a piano every day. So I started writing sonnets--every day. And other poetry. Since then I have written, or rewritten, daily.

Do you prefer pen to paper or keyboard to computer?

Pen and paper, or pen in journal, always, for first drafts. And preferably outside! Tweakings and even more substantial rewrites might occur onscreen.

Where do you find your inspiration?

From caring -- to a fault, unable to turn that particular "valve" off. And also from being unable to come up with the right words in situations immediately--so the writer in the back of my mind relives those moments to find the words I wish I could have improvised in the moment. b. From the daily, omnipresent miracle of existence. Floors me and fills me with gratitude. 

What was the last book you read that took your breath away?

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo--in French. I had episodes of shivering with tears and joy FIVE TIMES over the course of the novel. And still remember where in the novel they happened. That Victor Hugo.

Do you have a personal favorite book of poetry? If so, can you share it and tell us why?

Emily Dickinson's collected, I would say. I flagged more of her poems as awesome "favorites " (to read again and share) than any other tome. Though I usually say that Yeats is my favorite poet. And my Selected Poems of Robert Penn Warren has an amazing number of poems with bookmarks in them. But Dickinson has hundreds.